The 20 Essential Habits of Highly Passionate People (Category I)

Highly passionate people aren’t just lucky, they share common characteristics. They work hard, they trust their intuition and they persevere.

1. Excitement - You can never know where you’ll end up, so might as well enjoy the ride, right? “follow your passion”, “listen to your heart” or “go with your intuition”.

2. Courage - Many seem to believe that following their passion should be effortless. Unfortunately it’s not. It requires a lot of hard work and courage to follow your passion, but the good news is that you’ll be loving it, because you’re doing something you’re excited about.

3. Determination - If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that results usually don’t come fast. Following your passion doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of hard work. In my case, I wasted a lot of money until I started making money off of my websites. People tell me that I’m lucky. I seem to get good at everything they say. I’m not lucky. I’m just determined and I make sure to pick something that I like doing. It’s pretty easy to get good at something you love doing. In the beginning, you may not be 100% determined, but that’s okay. Be as determined as you can be and keep moving forward. Many people mistake a temporary failure for a permanent one. There are no permanent failures. There are only learning opportunities. If you learn everything you can about blogging, try it for a year and then lose motivation—that’s cool! You never know. Maybe you unconsciously picked up a few skills that will help you down the road with something else.

4. Positivity - You will too have bad days like anyone else. But, there’s a fine line between being blissfully ignorant and positively realistic. It’s something you have to figure out for yourself. I personally enjoy being blissfully ignorant, especially if it upsets someone else. There are a lot of people out there that try to tell you that you can’t go after your dreams. Those are usually the people that have given up. They aren’t really in a place to give advice. By being positive you lead by example. There is really no better way to change the world than to be the change you want to see. There’s no need to convince anyone.

5. Single-Mindedness - Being passionate doesn’t mean limiting yourself to one passion per lifetime. My passion changes all the time, but what remains constant is my single-mindedness. I work best when I’m 100% focused on what I do.

6. Growth-Oriented - By following your passion, you automatically become growth oriented. You tap into something greater than yourself. I’m always looking to grow in every way possible. I want to become better, smarter and happier. But you don’t want to lose the fun.

7. Selective - We all have many interests, which is good, but it can be a double-edged sword. You only have 24 hours, and you can’t excel in all.

8. Non-Perfectionist - Instead of focusing on the little details, start focusing on the big picture. Think about what you want to achieve and be more concerned about making progress than making everything look good. So often we think we like something, but when we actually start, we realize that it doesn’t feel right at all. That’s why it’s important to get started, get your feet wet and see how it feels.

9. Prioritized - Prioritization goes hand in hand with being selective. I know people that don’t have time, and I know people that make time. It’s not that you don’t have enough time; it’s that you fail to prioritize. If you really want something, there are ways to make time and prioritize, even if it starts with a few minutes per day.

10. Self-Motivated - As long as I’m doing what I want to be doing, I don’t need self-motivation. It’s only when I do the boring tasks that I have to throw in some ninja-motivation techniques. The more you follow your passion, the more motivated you will be.

11. Acceptance - Sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to. You would do your best to surpass whatever obstacles come your way, but you don’t always succeed. Sometimes life just isn’t that easy. We all make mistakes. We’re all afraid. The people that seem to be the most successful are the ones who’ve figured out how to keep taking action despite the obstacles on their path. There’s no one out there that can really tell you what to do. You have to figure out your own stuff. While I do recommend that you learn from others in the beginning, you also have to be willing to take the wheel after awhile and start experimenting.

12. Generous - Service to others is really service to self. Sometimes you need to help yourself before you can help others. Looking at it from that perspective, personal development is really world development.

13. Non-Balance - Get obsessed about the things you are really interested in. The most important thing is that you’re having fun doing it.

14. Personal Power - As the years passed, I’ve realized that the best place to look for guidance is within. This has helped me build confidence. I by no means have a perfect guidance system. I fall into traps. I make a fool of myself, but that’s cool, because I know that I would not want someone else to be doing that to me. We all have a kid inside of us who wants someone to tell us what to do. We want validation and all that good stuff. That’s okay, but in the end, you are the only one who really knows what you want.

15. Happiness - We don’t really need to retire to a nice beach in Brazil. All we need to do is find what makes us tick, to find our passion(s). I couldn’t imagine myself doing nothing for an extended period of time. Happiness to me is doing what I want.

16. Fun - There’s a need for discipline, but there’s also a need for fun. I used to be a lot more disciplined than fun. I’d say no to requests to hang out, because I had my eyes on my current goal. I wanted to reach my goal as soon as possible. I wanted to get things done. I’m not going to say that I’ve overcome this, because I love my obsessions too much, but I’ve gotten a lot better at relaxing and having fun. There’s no rush. If you feel like taking a break, then take a break. Who cares if you reach your goal? Who cares how good you look on paper? Who cares what other people think?

17. Perspective - It’s easy to get bogged down in the details, which is why it’s important to take a few steps back and look at what you’re really trying to achieve. I compare myself to the big guys and think about how far I still have to go instead of looking at how far I’ve come. In the end what this all comes down to is following my excitement. I have to remind myself of that once in awhile. I have to remind myself that I can relax and enjoy myself. I have to remind myself that there’s no rush. The only pressure you experience is the pressure you put on yourself.

18. Realistically Dreamy - Most of the things we today take for granted were thought to be impossible in the past. The simple point I want to make is this: don’t listen to the nay-sayers, because you will run into plenty of them. If I feel good about something, I’ll go for it. I don’t care if the chances of me succeeding are small, because even if it doesn’t work out, I will most likely gain some vital experience points in life. If at some point you don’t doubt yourself, you’re probably not being uncomfortable enough. Going after your passion means being uncomfortable. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just different.

19. Conditionally Open-Minded - Being flexible and open-minded means different things to different people. If I’ve set my sails for something, I shut out everything else and start taking action. There’s no need for me to keep distracting myself with more information if I know enough to take action. There will always be people telling me that I’m doing things wrong, but I don’t listen to them, because the only thing that matters is how I feel about what I’m doing. Maybe I need to fail in something to succeed at something else down the road. This is why I’ve stopped looking at things in isolation. I’ve started to trust the force. Yoda was right all along.

20. Excuse-Free - If I want something badly enough, I will overcome any excuse. The excuses you have right now don’t matter. What really matters is what kind of life you want.

Top 5 Reasons to Follow Your Passion and Excitement

1. Fulfillment - That feeling of wholeness, of fulfillment cannot be beaten by anything else. Otherwise in your life you will always find yourself to be missing something.

2. Expertise - The world needs your expertise. You are unique. You are awesome at one or several things and you need to share your stuff so others can learn and grow.

3. Growth - In order to grow, You have to constantly keep pushing myself. It is easy to stagnate, because it feels so comfortable and easy.

4. Synchronicity - You will see this when you start following your excitement. Somehow everything starts lining up. When you’re working at a soul-killing job the universe is trying to shake you awake. Start taking steps towards your passion and you will see what I mean.

5. Change - Change starts within each of us. The world is messed up and it needs you to follow your passion. Even if you’re only following your passion 1 minute a week, as long as it is 1 minute longer than the week before, you’re heading the right direction. Stop making excuses and start taking action.